Alexander VI (1431-1503), pope (1492-1503)
Born Rodrigo de Borja (Italian Borgia) near Valencia in Spain,even as a teenager, Rodrigo was given ecclesiastical grants and revenues. After studying law at Bologna, he became successively a cardinal, a bishop, and an able administrator in the papal court. As a member of the powerful Borgia family, he acquired wealth and lived a life of worldly pleasure. He had four children by a Roman noblewoman, Vanozza Catanei; the two most famous were Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. During the conclave of 1492 Rodrigo was elected pope.
In 1498 he ordered the execution of the Florentine church reformer Girolamo Savonarola.
The course of Alexander's pontificate was also determined by family considerations; he greatly increased the fortunes of his children through ecclesiastical and political appointments and marriages. Some modern studies have tended to minimize the spiritual laxity of his pontificate, but the positive aspects of his reign remain overshadowed by corruption and ambition.
Cesare Borgia (1475 – 1506)
Cesare was an illegitimate son of Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI. The year after the election of his father to the papacy, Cesare, then barely 18 years old, was made a cardinal. He soon became notorious for his licentious habits and violent temper, and he was suspected of complicity in the assassination of his brother Giovanni, duke of Benevento and of Gandia.
In August 1498, Cesare relinquished his cardinalate, and a few months later he was sent to France as a papal legate to convey to King Louis XII an annulment of Louis's first marriage. Louis rewarded Cesare with the duchy of Valentinois in France. In 1499 Cesare married a sister of Jean d'Albret, king of Navarre, and accompanied Louis XII to Italy, where he successfully undertook the conquest of the Romagna Region for the Holy See. Named duke of Romagna by his father in 1501, Cesare further extended his conquests; he seized the principality of Piombino in north-central Italy but failed in an attempt to acquire Bologna and Florence. He then took Camerino and the duchy of Urbino,both in central Italy.Following the death of Alexander VI in 1503, Cesare's enemies resumed the struggle for their possessions and seized his dominions in central Italy. Julius II, an archenemy of the Borgias who was elected pope in 1503, deprived him of the remainder of his holdings and allowed him to depart for Naples, then under Spanish control. Accused of conspiratorial activities in Naples, Cesare was arrested and taken to Spain. He was imprisoned in the castle of Medinadel Campo from 1504 to 1506 but finally contrived to escape to Navarre. He joined his brother-in-law, the king of Navarre, in an expedition against Castile and was killed in action at Viana, Navarre.
Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519)
Was born in Rome, daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and sister of Cesare Borgia. Lucrezia's father arranged three marriages for her for political reasons. She was married first at the age of 13, but her father annulled the marriage. She was then married to a nephew of the King of Naples. Her husband was killed in 1500 by his own bodyguard at Cesare's command. The following year Lucrezia became the wife of Alfonso I, duke of Este and Ferrara. Lucrezia established at Ferrara a court at which the foremost artists (Tiziano), writers (Ariosto), and scholars of the time gathered.